Centralizing forces?

Police organizations in several Northern and Western European countrieshave recently witnessed fundamental reforms to their structures as well as totheir relationships with governments.Many (but not all) of these macro-level reforms can be understood as formsof centralization. New or strengthened national police organizations havebeen created, with new territorial arrangements for delivering policeservices, involving the establishment of new structures of police governanceand accountability. Written by highly experienced researchers, the essays inCentralizing Forces? reveal intriguing similarities and differences in policereform in eight European countries: France, Denmark, Finland, Belgium,England and Wales, Scotland, the Netherlands and Sweden.The chapters examine the nature and dimensions of police reform and theimportance of the political, cultural, social and economic contexts in whichreform is happening. Despite some significant similarities in the reformprocess, the book also illustrates that there are important differences in thebackgrounds, nature and consequences of police reform. Police reform istherefore strongly context dependent, not only in its underling drivers andmotives, but also in its cultural meaning and the resulting problems andchallenges. The cumulative product of these insights is evidence of howpolice reform is strongly linked to changing views about the role of the policein contemporary society, the shifting balance of power relations between keyactors, and on political assumptions about the preferred relationshipsbetween the public police and national governments.This book therefore provides critical insights into police reform in differentnational contexts and a snapshot of a dynamic European policing landscapein which the contours of the relationships between police organizations,governments and citizens are being redrawn.